


Growing Up and Other Bothersome Things

by UselessReptileWrites



Series: Dragon Brothers [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Books)
Genre: Gen, animal death mention, blood mention, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-28 15:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15052730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UselessReptileWrites/pseuds/UselessReptileWrites
Summary: Growing up is always a difficult thing to do. It's even harder when you're a Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus and are slowly becoming too large to fit on land.





	Growing Up and Other Bothersome Things

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm moving my fanfiction from Tumblr to here! 
> 
> This is one of the pieces that I'm happiest with, which is why this is among the first to be posted. I'd never written prequels to any of my pieces before, and as far as I can tell stayed fairly consistent with what I wrote in "Cross My Heart." 
> 
> I do plan on writing more in this series-I have an idea to explore Hiccup the Second's early days living in Tomorrow-but no idea when that might appear, or even if I actually will end up writing and posting it.

Furious was tired of waking up to find he’d taken out another tree in his sleep. It was bad enough when he had to start sleeping outside the cave to avoid crushing his parents and siblings.

He huffed and squinted at the carnage. Two new trees laid on their sides, roots clawing up toward him as if they died trying to avenge their deaths.

Furious didn’t want to get up, but he had to get a better look. He grunted and pushed his upper body off the dirt and craned his head backwards, looking at his tail. Yes, it was definitely further away than it had been when he last checked. And him being a Sea Dragon, it wasn’t a matter of inches, but yards.

He groaned and let himself collapse on the spot and winced as the ground shook beneath him. Sure enough, his parents walked out from the cave, a gaggle of hatchlings of varying shapes, sizes, ages, and colors peering up from behind them.

“Was that you?” his father asked, tail twitching from uncertainty.

Furious snorted. He really didn’t want to answer this question. “Yes, Dad.”

“Is everything okay?” His mother’s nose was twitching as she approached him like he was a hatchling barely taller than her knees again, searching for any loose scales.

Furious wanted to say no, to roar at the sky in anger that he couldn’t just fall asleep and not have to worry about rolling over and demolishing a whole forest. But his family worried enough, and his siblings all were fidgeting with worry and fear.

Instead, he twitched an ear and said he was fine.

His parents glanced at each other, unconvinced, but shepherded their hatchlings back into the den.

Furious sighed and shifted himself into a more comfortable position. He really didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to have to fly out over the deep sea to grab a whale. Whales were good, but a lot of work to find one close enough to the surface to snatch. Besides, fish were better, and they were much too small to fill him up. Catching a whale would just be a reminder of that.

Furious was jealous of his siblings. All of them were small enough to fit into their dens, from Grasswhisper the Nanodragon to the second largest dragon in the family, Dustsnarl the Devilish Dervish.

_At least Grimbeard can’t cage me up again._ Just thinking of Hiccup’s biological father, the one who’d stolen him away, made him bare his teeth. He felt the prickle on his back and knew his hackles were raising.He forced himself to settle; even as large as he was, he was pretty sure Grimbeard couldn’t see him from Tomorrow, and he’d only worry his family more.

He forced himself to take to the sky. Perhaps hunting would help settle himself. His mom always said that no one could stay angry for long with the smell of salt in their nose and splashes of ice cold water on their scales, blood from a fresh kill on their tongues.

Back then, though, no one had known Grimbeard.

* * *

 

_Furious threw himself from side to side. The stone walls failed to give, instead cutting up the membranes on his wings. His fire had been spent long ago, washing as usefully over the rock walls and metal bars as waves broke over a cliff._

_He’d been in that cage for weeks now. Weeks without seeing the sky, or spreading his wings and flying free. Weeks without seeing his parents, or his siblings, or his Silver Phantom friend._

_Weeks without seeing Hiccup._

_They’d been separated the moment they’d arrived on that cursed island. Hiccup was dragged off by the large wingless who seemed to be the leader and Furious chained here._

_Furious was panting for breath, his wings bloody, sides missing scales, talons dull and achy. But he couldn’t give up. He couldn’t. His big brother was in danger, and he would never ever give up. So he had to be strong and brave, too._

_Anyways, didn’t his parents tell him to keep an eye on him before they left on that hunt, to stop him from stalking anything out of his league?_

I failed. _The thought made him hang his head. He should’ve seen that Hiccup was going to go to that hunting dragon’s aid and flown him away. They could’ve gone back to their cave and told their parents, and they could move to another island. Even their youngest sibling could fly, so it would’ve been fine._

_Furious’s ears pricked up as a thud filled the air, followed by quick and light footsteps, further followed by heavier, wingless shuffling._

_Furious lowered his head, folding his ears back and letting his spines stand straight up. He may not have fire, his claws might be dull and damaged, but he was heavy and strong. He would fight his way out._

_That was when his brother walked into view. He was covered in wingless garments, but he still walked like an upright dragon, arms at his sides like wings._

_Even in the heart of enemy territory, at the winglesses’ mercy, Furious couldn’t help but settle down at the sight of his big brother. He even wagged his tail._

_“Hiccup!” He tried to run over and nuzzle his brother, but the bars made sure he only crashed to a stop in front of him, muzzle now sore. He cautiously prodded his fangs with his forked tongue. None seemed loose._

_That sorted, he couldn’t fight the feeling of relief that his older brother was here and alive. He even looked unharmed, as fragile as wingless skin was._

_“Hey, Furious.” Hiccup lifted his arms slightly, to mimic wings slightly rising from his body with happiness. He managed to lean his head in through the bars and headbutt Furious._

_Despite that, Furious could tell that his brother was not happy._

_“What’s wrong?” He quickly scanned his brother’s body for scrapes. He held himself like he was carrying a mountain on his shoulders, but there was no scent of blood on him. Thank goodness for small mercies._

_Hiccup didn’t reply. He reached his hands into the cage and placed both of them over as much of Furious’s face as he could. His breathing was heavier, choppier, than Furious had ever heard it._

_“Hiccup?” Furious wanted nothing more than to curl around his brother, or better yet, to scoop him up and fly home._

_“Furious, you have to be good, okay?” Hiccup asked. He sniffed. “You have to be good. For me.”_

_Furious barely felt his tail twitch with alarm. “What’s wrong?” Movement caught his eye, and he glanced behind his brother._

_There stood the leader who’d dragged his brother away from him, accompanied by a couple winglesses in shiny carapaces that hung unnaturally over their stocky frames._

_“Furious, do not.” Hiccup’s voice was coarse as he buried his face deeper into Furious’s scales. “Please, calm down. They won’t hurt me, and if you do as they say, they won’t hurt you either.”_

_Still, Furious kept glaring at them over Hiccup’s shoulder as he continued to speak._

_“Furious, you know how Mom and Dad found me on a mountainside?”_

_Furious knew. Their parents had told them that many times, bodies curled against each other, tails twined. Depending on their mood, it was either a loving story about finding their eldest child and how dear he was to them and how it encouraged them to adopt other hatchlings down on their luck, to a raving rant about the heartlessness of wingless scum (with Hiccup as the only exception, of course) who tossed out any with good in their hearts for “weakness.”_

_Hiccup gestured a hand behind him, at the wingless leader who watched them with narrow, suspicious eyes. “Well, this is my birth father.”_

_Furious’s tail lashed, entirely without his permission. As a dragon who lived in the far north, who swam in the Arctic Ocean for fun, cold rarely bothered him. But the chill that coursed through his body now was far colder than that. Was it hatred? Fear?_

_Grief?_

_“He wants me back,” Hiccup mumbled._

_Furious dug his claws into the ground, the scraping grating on his toes and ears. “He should’ve thought about that before he abandoned you.” He tried to intensify his glares over Hiccup’s head. It made the winglesses guarding Hiccup’s biological dad-no, captor- shift and mutter amongst themselves in Norse._

_The captor was unmoved._

_“I don’t want to stay with him either,” Hiccup said, running a hand down Furious’s face. Was he comforting him or himself? Furious didn’t know. “But he said that if I did, and if I swore on my life you didn’t hurt anyone, he’d let you go free.”_

_Furious flattened his ears. The guards were looking even more nervous now, hands reaching for their weapons._

_“No, you can’t!” He may have been out of flame, but he still managed to snort out an impressive amount of smoke._

_Hiccup shook his head. “I already crossed my heart that you’d do that.”_

_Furious whimpered, wings crashing to the ground. “You didn’t.” Crossing your heart meant that you could not break your promise, and if you did you were as good as dead._

_Hiccup took a deep breath. He didn’t deny it._

_“You have to come home with us,” Furious pleaded. He tried to grab at the ground, the only steady thing in this place. “Our parents-our real parents-are waiting. They’ll be worried sick about us.”_

_A couple plips caught Furious’s ears. Tears._

_“I can’t stay with you anymore,” he said. “I have to live here, now.”_

_Here was a place that enslaved dragons, where a wingless could steal away a couple hatchlings because he felt entitled to one he’d made clear he didn’t want years ago._

_“Please, don’t.” Furious didn’t know why he was pleading. He knew his brother couldn’t back out of this promise. His brother knew that, too._

_Hiccup took a shaky breath. “You have to, Furious. I’m your older brother.”_

_That phrase. That phrase he often uttered when Furious was afraid of getting into trouble and Hiccup said he’d take the blame, that Furious was only following him because he was the older brother._

_It made Furious want to curl up into a ball and roar out his grief._

_“Promise me you’ll do as I say.” Hiccup’s fingers were curling up into claws, like he was afraid he’d be dragged away if he didn’t._

_Furious couldn’t speak._

_“Promise me.”_

_Furious couldn’t._

_“Promise.”_

_“I-I promise.”_

_“Cross your heart.”_

_“I-I cross my heart.”_

_And hope to die._

_Hiccup sniffled and backed away, wiping an arm under his nose. He turned and said something to the captor in halted, stuttering Norse. The captor glowered at him, but barked something at the guards._

_One did something that raised the bars trapping Furious. Another pointed their weapon as Hiccup’s neck._

_Furious wished that he could break his promise, to crush the winglesses under his claws and fly away with his brother, not stopping until their island was beneath them._

_But it wasn’t just his promise he’d be breaking. It wouldn’t be just his life at stake._

_Furious, head bowed, whispered a farewell to his brother and left for home._

* * *

 

Furious’s eyes flickered open. He was lying on a battlefield.

Or rather, what looked like one. The land around him was furrowed by deep gouges where claws-his claws-had torn at the earth. He turned his head. Several trees had been uprooted, their roots giving off an earthy smell.

“Son?”

Furious suddenly felt as heavy as stone as the concerned growl caught his attention. He turned to face it, and found his parents standing by the den.

By the den that’d nearly been taken out by a wayward claw.

By the den that had a pile of shivering hatchlings huddled inside.

He looked at his parents. They were staring at him, meeting his gaze with steady golden eyes.

Their wings were trembling.

“I-I-” What could Furious say? Sorry for nearly killing everyone because he had a nightmare?

“I’m going to sleep in the ocean.” Not trusting himself to take a single step, he lifted off and glided down toward the edge of the island, the den where he’d been raised behind him in seconds.

His landing was far from graceful, instead resulting him flopping chest first into the surf, sending a wave along the beach but thankfully not farther. The chill of the water was almost pleasant after that nightmare/memory, a reminder he was free to fly, walk, swim.

Well, maybe not walk; he didn’t want to take out the whole forest.

With a sigh, Furious rested his chin on the beach, feeling the waves roll back and forth as if trying to tag his chin and racing back to safety. Sand itched as it forced its way between his scales, but perhaps he could wade out deeper tomorrow and wash himself.

It’d be a good excuse for not hanging around and talking to his parents, anyway.

* * *

 

“Hiccup’s back!”

Three weeks of getting used to sleeping in the ocean, always surrounded by sound and feeling water ebb and flow over his limbs, had barely done anything for his mood, so he wasn’t entirely surprised when his sibling bringing news of his brother’s return did little more than help him get to his feet. He strained his neck and scanned the sky. True to his sibling’s word, he saw his wingless brother riding a scrawny, dull-scaled dragon toward the island.

Furious sent his sibling back and waited a few minutes for everyone to get settled; that dragon was most likely one Hiccup rescued from their slavery at the hands of Grimbeard, and Furious didn’t want to overwhelm them with his size.

The only good thing about his habit of uprooting trees in his sleep was that now the area by his family’s den had a larger space for him to land in. Even so, he accidentally knocked over a few more as he landed. He glared at his tail as if that would discourage it from doing that again and then glanced at where Hiccup stood.

It seemed like his height was stable; he looked just the same as he had the last few years. He had a few more scars from Viking games like bashyball, and a knotted strand of hair-"It’s a braid, Mom"-he said someone special had done for him.

“Furious!” No one could stay sullen when Hiccup was looking at him. His mane of blond hair only added to his sunny expression as he patted one of the sea dragon’s claws. “I swear I can see you from Tomorrow now, you’re so tall!”

Furious tried not to let that sting. Why did that hurt? Was it the reminder of his height, or the wish that his height would let him see his brother? Was it both?

Hiccup’s expression twitched, but Furious quickly dipped his head and greeted him. “I wish I could see you there, brother, but you’re too small to see.”

Hiccup guffawed and patted Furious’s nose vigorously. Despite how muscular the human had grown, Furious barely felt it.

Furious forced himself to join in the gathering; it was hardly every day that his brother snuck away from Tomorrow to visit. While he couldn’t stay, thanks to that cursed promise, he’d never said anything about not visiting. From the sounds of it, Grimbeard hated that fact, but couldn’t do anything about it. And while his human and dragon slaves suffered a lot under his rule, he never lifted a finger to harm Hiccup.

At least, not since he abandoned him and then kidnapped him, forcing him to live away from the family that loved him before he proved his strength.

So he smiled, listening as Hiccup regaled everyone with the latest jailbreak he’d orchestrated, arms waving all over trying to mimic the panicking guards and a Grimbeard more resigned than angry.

But still, Hiccup seemed to notice something. Why else would he lean up again Furious’s chin and suggest a quick jaunt on an adventure for old times’ sake?

Furious let Hiccup climb onto his head before taking off to fly on the other side of the island. That was where the cove was. The tall cliffs surrounding a deep inlet of water provided some privacy.

The moment Furious let Hiccup get onto land, his brother sighed and said, “Spill.”

Furious sighed and tried not to twitch his tail. He didn’t want to wash his brother away. “It’s nothing. I’ll get over it.”

Despite the fact that Furious could’ve killed Hiccup more easily than he could uproot a tree, the look that Hiccup gave him made him fold back his ears and duck his head.

“That flinch earlier didn’t look like nothing.”

So Hiccup had seen it. Furious huffed, then realized he was hunching in on himself. He didn’t want to worry his family any more than he had to, so he forced himself to at least keep his head from drooping any lower than he had to in order to meet Hiccup’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Hiccup sat at the edge of the cliff, dangling his feet over a steep drop. “I want to help.”

Did Furious say that it was hard to refuse Hiccup? He either had puppy eyes or a piercing glare.

“It’s just…” Furious took a break to sigh, and the resulting gust nearly bowled his brother over. “I’m too big.”

Hiccup straightened himself. He raised a hand and patted down his hair, but it remained as windblown as always. “That’s it?”

That’s it? Furious shook his head. “I hate waking up and seeing everyone afraid that I might crush them in our sleep.”

Hiccup hummed, a thoughtful sound that might’ve once soothed him. “Pick me up.”

Furious held out a paw almost instinctively, and Hiccup stepped onto it. He had more than enough room on the paw to pace, though thankfully he didn’t. Instead, he just leaned against a claw twice his height, acting as comfortable against it as he seemed to be in his skin.

Furious was almost jealous.

“I’m just…just tired of waking up and finding out that I’ve knocked over trees in my sleep, or getting up from a nightmare and finding I nearly caved in our family’s den. I’m tired of having to sleep in the ocean because I can’t fit on land without scaring everyone anymore.” This time, when he sighed, he moved his head away. He didn’t want to knock Hiccup off his paw. The shore beneath was too far for a human to fall without dying.

Hiccup patted the claw behind him. Furious couldn’t feel it, but seeing it seemed to help some. “I know.” He sighed.

Furious tried to keep his tail from lashing. “At least you don’t break stuff when you don’t mean to.”

The words were out before Furious could bite them back, and it was Hiccup’s turn to flinch.

“Sorry,” Furious whispered. As big a dragon he was, it still was pretty loud, but that counted for something, right?

“It’s… it’s fine.” Hiccup slumped down to sit on Furious’s paw, head resting at the base of the claw he once stood leaning up against. He shook his head. “But, you know, I did break something without meaning to.”

Furious tilted his head. What?

Hiccup was silent for a moment. “When I was born and Grimbeard abandoned me for being a runt-a Hiccup- my human mother left him. She just vanished, looking for me. Even if Grimbeard forgave me for that, I don’t think my human brothers did.”

Furious snorted. He never liked those brothers, not from what Hiccup had to say. “That wasn’t your fault.”

Hiccup nodded. “I know. Grimbeard chose to abandon me, and she chose to leave him over it. But because of that, he wanted to keep me. A reminder of her, I guess. And because I made that promise instead of finding another way, I… I broke our family.”

“You didn’t break it.” Just like that harsh accusation, this ripped its way out of Furious’s mouth. “Didn’t Mom say that you gave her hope? That you make her hope that one day maybe humans and dragons might live in peace? That you inspired her to adopt other hatchlings, like me?” As slowly and gently as he dared, he nudged Hiccup with his nose, not daring to breathe, not daring even to move up his paw to make it easier on his neck. “You made a family. And you thought your way out of that promise.”

Hiccup smiled. “And this family wouldn’t half be the same without you.” He stood up and gently punched the claw. “Even if you take out a forest when you sleep.”

Furious didn’t completely feel better about his size, but the feeling inside might have been the start of healing.

“And if you’re still all upset about your size, maybe you just haven’t seen how it can come in handy.” Hiccup suddenly had that cocky smile on his face, the one that promised trouble and a grand adventure.

It made Furious’s spines shiver in a sudden chill of foreboding.

“What’re you thinking of?” Furious asked.

Hiccup’s smile widened. “What would you say if I had a plan to get Grimbeard to free all the dragons?”

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is welcomed!


End file.
